Battle Kitten: Ascension

[NeverThatBored]

1 hour ago, fleaball said:

Oh jesus. Roommate just texted me a screenshot of a convo with her friend. "Hey my British friends want to come in for inauguration thurs-sat. Think Flea would be okay with that?" So first, the assumption that roommate is okay with that. (She's not.) Then the not asking me, although maybe she was putting out feelers. Roommate stalled by saying she was thinking of renting the place bc she's heard places are going for like $8k for the weekend. Mostly bc she wants to tell her in person that a) no guests period thanks and b.) she needs to pay if she's staying here. But then asked if I'd be up for bailing that weekend if she can really get 8k. I'm hoping it doesn't pan out but if the opportunity is there, sure. I'll go find a hotel somewhere and get away for the weekend. Hell i could go home if I wanted. But mostly I don't want to have to pack up my shit so no thanks. 

 

Oh jeez, the shenanigans never end. 

 

Also, I hope you would get some of that 8K if this went down. 

[fleaball]

4 minutes ago, NeverThatBored said:

 

Oh jeez, the shenanigans never end. 

 

Also, I hope you would get some of that 8K if this went down. 

Oh yeah. She asked if I'd be okay with it and that we'd split it. So yeah on one hand I am totally down for $4k. On the other hand, if I'm going to sit around and do nothing for a weekend I'd rather do it in my own house than some random hotel hours away (because of course anything local was booked months ago).

[Countess D'If]

Holy crap, if you can get 8K for renting out your pad for the weekend, GO FOR IT, yo!

[Tamesis]

Seriously, I would rent my place out for that money. Do it up!

[Owlet]

I say run for the hills! Get as far away from this inauguration as you can :/ 

[Dagger]

Did I call it or did I call it?

 

Your poor room mate let someone who has no room mate etiquette borrow her room.

 

Sorry, my mind is all "I totally called that. I'm great!".  So I have nothing worthwhile to add.

[fleaball]

Yeah I was not necessarily as charitable to my roommate as I could have been. Oh well. 

 

I am all about money. Anxiety brain is telling me to worry because strangers in our house will steal our stuff. Although honestly would you pay $8k just to steal stuff worth substantially less than that? Right. So eh. I'm letting her handle it. If it happens, great. If not, I won't cry. 

[Dagger]

2 hours ago, fleaball said:

Yeah I was not necessarily as charitable to my roommate as I could have been. Oh well. 

Want to know the secret for I managed to call that right?

 

IT DIDN'T HAPPEN TO ME.

 

Because seriously if it had, I'd have been resentful and angry as hell at both of them. Upsetting my space and seeming to move in and all that.

 

Basically, don't beat yourself up.

[Severine]

8 hours ago, Owlet said:

I say run for the hills! Get as far away from this inauguration as you can :/ 

 

Yeah every time flea mentions the inauguration I wince a little. Noooo don't want it to happen

[fleaball]

Yeah no I dont want it to happen either. They're building bleachers or something across from the White House and when I was walking to the bus yesterday I saw them and just went nooooooooo. Because this is going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. 

[RES]

3 hours ago, Severine said:

 

Yeah every time flea mentions the inauguration I wince a little. Noooo don't want it to happen

So much this....

[Jarric]

On ‎09‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 11:39 PM, fleaball said:

Oh jesus. Roommate just texted me a screenshot of a convo with her friend. "Hey my British friends want to come in for inauguration thurs-sat. Think Flea would be okay with that?" So first, the assumption that roommate is okay with that. (She's not.) Then the not asking me, although maybe she was putting out feelers.

 

Ok, so if I was Roommate's Friend and I was going to ask that question that's probably exactly how I'd do it. Because weird as this is I wouldn't want my friend to feel uncomfortable with having to say flat no to me, so instead I find an excuse why the British probably can't stay, and then build that excuse into my question so my friend has a "get out of jail free" card if they don't want me to come but don't want to give me a flat no either. Does that make any sense?

 

Ok, on re-reading that it's totally irrational; why am I preparing other people's excuses for them? And what's so wrong with a flat no anyway, do I actually need a reason? Anyway, stupid as it is I do do that so maybe that's what's going on here?

 

Also agree; if you can get $8k for renting out your room do it and get the hell out of there!

[fleaball]

4 hours ago, Jarric said:

 

Ok, so if I was Roommate's Friend and I was going to ask that question that's probably exactly how I'd do it. Because weird as this is I wouldn't want my friend to feel uncomfortable with having to say flat no to me, so instead I find an excuse why the British probably can't stay, and then build that excuse into my question so my friend has a "get out of jail free" card if they don't want me to come but don't want to give me a flat no either. Does that make any sense?

 

Ok, on re-reading that it's totally irrational; why am I preparing other people's excuses for them? And what's so wrong with a flat no anyway, do I actually need a reason? Anyway, stupid as it is I do do that so maybe that's what's going on here?

 

Also agree; if you can get $8k for renting out your room do it and get the hell out of there!

It totally makes sense and I'd probably do the same thing. Going by precedent though, this girl is one of those people who's always got a place to stay with friends and her friends always have a place to stay where she is. Which is great, except when you're at someone else's place. (This is far from the first time we've found out she's coming up at the last minute. And it's never "can I crash there?" It's always "hey I'm coming up." So meh.)

[Jarric]

10 minutes ago, fleaball said:

It totally makes sense and I'd probably do the same thing. Going by precedent though, this girl is one of those people who's always got a place to stay with friends and her friends always have a place to stay where she is. Which is great, except when you're at someone else's place. (This is far from the first time we've found out she's coming up at the last minute. And it's never "can I crash there?" It's always "hey I'm coming up." So meh.)

 

Ah, well in that case I retract my previous comment - that's just rude.

[fleaball]

1 hour ago, Jarric said:

 

Ah, well in that case I retract my previous comment - that's just rude.

Well you still get points for giving people the benefit of the doubt instead of being a jerk automatically. (Like me!) 

[Severine]

You're not a jerk! 

[fleaball]

1 hour ago, Severine said:

You're not a jerk! 

I can be. It's been pointed out to me that I'm not in this particular situation but I usually jump to bad conclusions rather than give people the benefit of the doubt. 

[fleaball]

Okay now I'm being a jerk and just ignoring the friend's text messages because I just cannot right now. 

 

So yesterday was the first day since 12/22 that I didn't cry. Teared up at one point emailing a friend, but that was it. Today I haven't cried yet, but it was a near thing picking up the graduation stuff. Also teared up when I realized that hey, I don't have to worry about dealing with my mother harassing me about grandkids in the future. Aaaaand here I go. Damn. But anyway. I remember in high school we were driving home and I said I was never having kids and she legit stopped the car in the middle of the street. I thought that only happened in TV. But she was super upset about it. And then more recently I said it while we were on the phone and I got the "you'll change your mind, don't worry." Uh, fuck no. Thanks. So every now and then the thought would creep into my head that I'm over 9000% sure that I'm not having kids and more than fine with that, but I'd still have to deal with like, disappointing her on some level and/or probably get questioned about it the older I got. (She was 31 when they got married and had me at 33 so I haven't gotten any of those questions yet.) And yeah. Now it doesn't matter. Because even if I run out and get pregnant tonight nothing says she'd be around to see it. 

 

I'm such a morbid asshole. When I mentioned that roommate was trying to convince me to do a PhD she started joking about how I can't write the whole dissertation in one night and the first thing that popped into my head was "you won't have to it anyway." Not like, to be mean or bitter or anything but more like it was just a fact. Which, okay, it is, but still. 

 

I have no idea what I'm going to talk about in therapy since we didn't meet last week. You guys talked me down from all my major issues since the last time I saw her (at which point she also said "I'm really glad you have your friends online") and while there are a zillion things we could talk about nothing pressing comes to mind. But no, as I'm thinking about it right now, she'll probably start by asking me how I've been and then I'll probably just recap everything I've word vomited here and spend the hour crying again. I'll have about an hour to kill between getting there and the actual appointment so maybe I'll page back through here and see what the major issues were. Ugh I'm suddenly not excited for this appointment anymore.

[Owlet]

I feel like you had something you wanted to bring up at therapy a while ago and kept not being able to because of other stuff... 

[fleaball]

2 minutes ago, Owlet said:

I feel like you had something you wanted to bring up at therapy a while ago and kept not being able to because of other stuff... 

"No one will ever love me because I'm dumb and boring and ugly." Yeah. Forgot about that til you mentioned but yeah it doesn't feel like something I want to talk about at this point. Not because it doesn't need to be talked about and not because I feel like I should only be focusing on the stuff with my mother but just... meh?

[Owlet]

1 minute ago, fleaball said:

"No one will ever love me because I'm dumb and boring and ugly." Yeah. Forgot about that til you mentioned but yeah it doesn't feel like something I want to talk about at this point. Not because it doesn't need to be talked about and not because I feel like I should only be focusing on the stuff with my mother but just... meh?

Fair enough. I wouldn't want to talk about that either. Either way, I'm sure she will find something to talk about  

[fleaball]

3 minutes ago, Owlet said:

Fair enough. I wouldn't want to talk about that either. Either way, I'm sure she will find something to talk about  

That's the weird thing. I do still want to have that discussion. Mostly because I'm at the point now where I go in like "my brain is dumb about this thing! help me un-dumb it!" and it sucks talking about it but I like having, if not resolution then at least some kind of path or something? But where before I'd gone in several weeks in a row determined to talk about it and frustrated when other stuff came up that I also wasn't willing to table for later, now I'm just not interested. Maybe if I bring up the new OKC account it will segue. 

 

Ah. Fuck. I forgot she wanted me to think about things to do to bond with my mother. Which we discussed here. But still. Ack.

[fleaball]

I told my therapist y'all were yelling at me over the past two weeks when I was being dumb and she said again that she's really happy I have you. And no I'm not crying on the train over it, how dare you suggest that. 

 

I didn't get to reread the entire 4 pages we've covered here since I last saw her, but I did remember a few things where I was proud of myself so we talked about some of that. And about some other mom-related stuff. Obviously things that need to be talked about but it's so frustrating because I want to talk about other stuff. Like a month ago we spent most of the time on "my mother's in the hospital and I feel like something's going to happen and I'm not ready." The week after it was "she's out of the hospital but I'm still pretty sure there's bad news coming and hypothetically I guess this is how I'll handle it." Then "well shit." And again tonight. I don't want to not talk about it because this is clearly what's fucking me up the most right now, but I also want to be like "look! Look at these others things! I found a mantra I like and I'm suddenly cheerleading all the new Rebels and hey I'm actually excited about my not-thesis and if I come up with decent results maybe I'll try to publish it! Look at me doing all these other things even though I'm a hot mess!" Idk. Maybe it's the little kid in me who never got enough praise and fuck me can I just stop crying for like five seconds? But yeah. I'm sure you've all noticed that when I'm pleased with myself I have to point it out so everyone can pat me on the head and tell me what a good job I did. So I guess it's a combination of that and also wanting to recognize the progress I'm making? Considering she's the one I'm paying to help me do this and all? I need a time turner or something. Because I cannot keep spending every appointment doing this.

 

Ha. Fuck. I never did the stupid mini proposal I'm supposed to submit tomorrow. They never got back to me to answer my questions in the first place, but still. Meh. On the bright side, I don't have to describe my methodology in my proposal like I thought I did, so I don't have to spend my weekend frantically trying to figure out how to do this. Huzzah.  

[fleaball]

I am anxious as fuck today. It's passed a bit now but I spent most of the day unable to focus on anything and also paranoid again that my chest hurts because I've got some disease. Which again is not true. This is more or less what it felt like when they first diagnosed the acid reflux and also I had a spectacular coughing fit on the train yesterday so I probably pulled something. Either way I had the CT scan an hour ago so we'll know on Tuesday or Wednesday whether something's wrong. I'm really not okay with this stupid cycle of worry about a thing > anxiety gets worse > fixate on the thing > more anxiety > hey you're going to die and/or the world is ending. And then when I eventually talk myself down from it I find a new thing to worry about. (Like my leg has felt funky again, probably because I need new work shoes. But I'm more inclined to think "well I have few risk factors for blood clots and had no indication of them last week, but what if I have one now?!" Still rolling my eyes at myself for that one.)

 

When I mentioned to my therapist last night that I've noticed my anxiety getting worse she was like "duh? that's totally natural given what you're going through right now." And she totally wasn't being sarcastic despite how it reads on the interwebs. But I wish we'd gotten a chance to talk about what to do with that. I mean on one hand, yay at least I have confirmation that I haven't just spontaneously reverted to how bad I used to be. On the other hand... I don't know, I guess all I can do is just keep up with self care? Which feels so useless sometimes. Like I was thinking this morning that if I want to start doing yoga before work or make sure I have time to meditate, I'll have to start getting up earlier. Which means going to bed earlier. Which is technically doable but 3 nights in a row each week I won't be getting home til about 9. I can't really just come home and go to bed within half an hour after being gone for 14 hours because I'll have stuff that needs doing? And regardless of what I want to get done, I've got two classes with a lot of reading/homework, plus the research project, my research assistantship (guess who hasn't replied to several emails I've sent in a two-week span), and the virtual internship thing. (It's not worth dropping either of the last two things because they really don't cause me that much stress overall, just in isolated moments. And one of them pays.) But having all of these things means stress, and I'm sure at some point two or more will overlap and cause a lot of stress, so who knows if I'll be able to keep up whatever self-care rituals I'll have going. I suppose if I don't want to make that kind of effort to care for myself would be to go on medication but honestly I don't think now is the best time. I can't afford screwing around with side effects while all of this is going on. Never mind that when I tried to find a psychiatrist before it was basically impossible so it wouldn't be a quick fix anyway. Right, time to double down on self care then, I guess. It's funny how this is how I used to live and I just rolled with it. I was miserable (verified by finding and rereading my LiveJournal that I posted in til 2013. Holy shit was I miserable) but I lived with it. And now that I've gotten better both at handling it when it happens and also just in general it really, really sucks to be where I am now. I'm mad that it's happening, I'm mad that there's nothing I can do about it, and I'm mad that everything makes it worse. Obviously I get strung out over school- or family-related stuff, but also the current political environment? That you can't escape because even if I don't seek out news it's all over social media. And like, everything else, because I'm reaching the point where I have so little mental and emotional energy that convincing myself to walk 5 minutes to the supermarket is overwhelming. Running other errands requires googling how long it will take to walk/drive/bus there and weighing whether it's even worth it, which usually it isn't. I know I'll continue to meet minimum requirements for things (work, school) because fear of failure is more powerful than other stress for me, but I'll probably wind up shutting down completely where other things are concerned. And then feeling even worse about myself for doing it. Oh what a fun semester this is going to be. I know I'm being a bit more pessimistic now than usual because it's been a rough day but thinking about all this stuff is just... ugh.

 

The thing is that all the things I can do to help myself feel better take time. Meditation, journaling, yoga or whatever other physical activity I feel like doing, reading (because it occurred to me that I haven't read any fanfic since Sunday and for whatever reason that calms me down; I've noticed in the past that I get more riled up if I go a few days without it too. maybe it's just the escape from reality?), even eating better will take time because it's not a part of my routine now and I'm not great at cooking so there'd be a big investment up front to learn how and where to shop (because the 3 closest supermarkets to me all have disgusting produce sections) and how to cook and what to cook. It's just going to be too much. Logically I know that when I'm stressed I'm less productive/less everything positive, so taking the time to chill the fuck out would ultimately work in my favor, but I'm allergic to logic when trying to climb up a wall. I could give up caffeine and see if that makes a difference, but lol grad school.

 

Wow. This was just supposed to be "I'm really anxious today" and then it became this. Ugh. And all I really did was talk myself in a circle. 29 minutes til I get to go home. And then spend the weekend doing a shit ton of research because this prof wants my research proposal by Tuesday and even though I hadn't done a lot of research for it in the first place, I wound up picking the project that I'd initially dismissed, so I don't even have vague thoughts about how to bullshit it. Le sigh. Although by "spend the weekend" doing it I mean I'm starting tomorrow because I absolutely need to take time for myself tonight. I'm debating getting off the bus a few stops early and hitting chipotle because I'm in no mood too cook and it's healthier than anything else I can think of that would deliver to my house. Odds are I won't because getting off the bus would be too much effort but hey we'll see.

[Countess D'If]

I agree with your therapist because that's exactly what happened to me last summer: I was doing great in therapy, I was applying all the tricks and techniques we were discussing.

 And then, boom! Life through a bag of flaming dog poop at me. And I reacted... like a normal human being. Nobody knows what to do in these situations. It's totally okay to have emotions. I got down on myself for reacting the way I did. And it took my therapist to help me walk through everything that was going on. And she was all like, nobody knows how to react to these things! It's okay to have emotions, big emotions, any emotions! It's a big scary thing that happened.

 And then I was always all like well we're working on this and I should be able to use the tricks that I'm learning. I shouldn't have these big scary reactions.

And then she would tell me that that was being super judgy of my reactions, and that it's okay to have the big reaction, but then just take a step back and kind of analyze it.

When you're in therapy to learn how to deal with study related anxiety, those deal with techniques are not always going to translate into my husband just got mugged anxiety. Nor is your brain going to remember to apply study anxiety techniques to husband got mugged anxiety. So you just can't really be judging yourself about, oh no I freaked out because The Marine almost died but I'm not supposed to freak out because I'm supposed to be learning how to deal with anxiety! 

The everyday anxiety is turns out to be pretty petty in the face of the my mom has cancer anxiety and you while you can be angry* about the former and want to fix it with therapy, you can't be angry* about the latter because THAT'S the kind of stuff that you're supposed to bigly worry about.

 

 

*I know angry is totally not the right word here. I just don't know what I really mean, so angry works.